


I am Nothing

by yaboyj



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: M/M, Mental Breakdown, an analysis on edwards reaction to the death of isabella incorporating edward's abuse, domestic abuse mention, mental spiral
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-13
Updated: 2018-08-13
Packaged: 2019-06-26 19:38:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15669936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yaboyj/pseuds/yaboyj
Summary: His skin pressed clammy to the porcelain sink to grip, the heat from his body evaporating. His eyes jutting around the room, he licked his lips at the gilded exterior.Like Oswald, it was extravagant and bold. But looking past the trappings of wealth splayed before him, you could still see the cracks in the tile. A lie.





	I am Nothing

_"But one cannot deny love."_

The burning heat searing into his upper arm was nothing, compared to the deep gut wrenching sickness he felt inside him. He had thought… _wished_ it was just another ploy by Barbara. Another manipulator trying to turn him away from what he wanted.

But it seemed… the manipulation was right in front of him all along. Hidden behind those beautiful, kind, destructive eyes.

Ed couldn't help the gasp that left him. But that was all he let slip past his shell. Caving inwards like a crumbling tunnel he rushed off after a few excuses.

He slammed the bathroom door behind him, staring himself in the mirror. His composure had deteriorated, no longer neccessary in this enclosed space.

This small… concrete space.

His skin pressed clammy to the porcelain sink to grip, the heat from his body evaporating. His eyes jutting around the room, he licked his lips at the gilded exterior.

Like Oswald, it was extravagant and bold. But looking past the trappings of wealth splayed before him, you could still see the cracks in the tile. A lie.

_It's always been a lie._

He let out a small scream, tearing his glasses off his face and throwing them to the sink. His fingers pressed painfully into his skin as the world around him shuttered. He looked everywhere and nowhere. The mirror, the floor, the walls.

He looked at himself, shattering. Nothing.

He was a _fool_.

He was… nothing.

 _Again_.

* * *

 

The next days, he was no more than a shell. He did not speak, he did not smile. He stood at Oswald's side, only long enough for the camera.

Behind closed doors he was a wall. What were the writings on the wall? Indecipherable, messy, and hidden. Oswald could try and read them, but he would never peer to the boiling rage simmering behind the layed brick.

At least, not until Edward walled him in. Brick by brick, in a cold wine cellar. His laughs echoing as Oswald was buried by the pain he had brought.

He could not think, he could not speak, he could not smile. Even alone, he was but bricks. Cold and solidified concrete.

He could not let himself mourn over what he'd lost.

 _What he'd never had to start_ , he corrected.

Oswald had tried to tear him down but he was built like a fortress. It could've been a kingdom for Oswald. That's what he'd offered him. Everything he had in himself. He would've done anything to keep him in, but things had changed.

He knew the truth now.

Oswald was just like everyone else.

He would hurt him. He would destroy him, clawing him apart masking it under the guise of love and guidance.

He wouldn't take it anymore. He couldn't.

He couldn't let it happen to him again.

He would never go back to the broken child he was. _Never_.

* * *

 

It wasn't love. Or maybe love wasn't what he'd wished it was.

Was love an excuse? Did love let others hurt him a million times over?

Maybe. But he was done with excuses.

He wasn't a victim anymore. Not to anyone; Oswald, his peers, his father. None of them would hurt him again, not out of rage or arrogance, and not out of love.

Victims don't hold the weapon. He _did_.

Oswald knew what to say, he always did. He could talk himself out of anything, except this. He said everything Ed knew was true.

He was weak, he was nothing without Oswald.

This would be the murder of someone he loved.

He _had_ loved? No.

He stared past the drops on his misty glasses towards the beaten man held at gun point.

After everything, he knew it was still true.

He still loved Oswald.

But he wasn't a victim. And as Oswald sunk to the bottom of the lake, scarlet red rising to the surface, he cried.

He could've blamed it on the rain, but he knew the familiar burning sting of salt in his eyes.

He wasn't that child anymore. He wasn't a victim.

Without Oswald, he may not have been Edward Nygma anymore. But at least, there was nothing else either.

He wasn't a fool, he wasn't a victim, he wasn't even himself.

_Who is nowhere, but everywhere, except where something is?_

He smiled.


End file.
